e form was plainly that of a comely woman.
She stood between the rails with her arms stretched out like a cross,
her white gown fitting her figure closely. A black, shawl-like mantilla
was over the head, partly concealing her face; her right foot was upon
the left-hand rail. She stood perfectly still. We were within fifty feet
of her, and our speed was reduced to half, when Billy said sharply:
"Hold her, John--for God's sake!"

But I had the "Mary Ann" in the back motion before the words left his
mouth, and was choking her on sand. Billy leaned upon the boiler-head
and pulled the whistle-cord, but the white figure did not move. I shut
my eyes as we passed the spot where she had stood. We got stopped a rod
or two beyond. I took the white light in the tank and sprang to the
ground. Billy lit the torch, and followed me with haste. The form still
stood upon the track just where we had first seen it; but it faced us
and the arms were folded. I confess to hurrying slowly until Billy
caught up with the torch, which he held over his head.

"Good evening, senors," said the apparition, in very sweet English, just
tinged with the Castilian accent, but she spoke as if nearly exhausted.

"Good gracious," said I, "whatever brought you away out here, and hadn't
you just as lief shoot a man as scare him to death?"

She laughed very sweetly, and said: "The washout brought me just here,
and I fancy it was lucky for you--both of you."

"Washout?" said I. "Where?"

"At the dry bridge beyond."

Well, to make a long story short, we took her on the engine--she was wet
through--and went on to the dry bridge. This was a little wooden
structure in a sag, about a mile away, and we found that the storm we
had encountered farther back had done bad work at each end of the
bridge. We did not cross that night, but after placing signals well
behind us and ahead of the washout, we waited until morning, the three
of us sitting in the cab of the "Mary Ann," chatting as if we were old
acquaintances.

This young girl, whose fortunes had been so strangely cast with ours,
was the daughter of Senor Juan Arboles, a rich old Spanish Don who owned
a fine place and immense herds of sheep over on the Rio Pecos, some ten
miles west of the road. She was being educated in some Catholic school
or convent at Trinidad, and had the evening before alighted at the big
corrals, a few miles below, where she was met by one of her father's
Mexican rancheros, who led he